This morning Rob and I got up bright and early, stopped in at the grocery store to pick up some fruit and pain au chocolat and OJ, and made our way on over to the Eiffel Tower. Our ultimate goal was to skip out on the line situation, since Rob absolutely hates standing in lines. We did a pretty good job of preempting the lines, thank goodness, and we were blessed to find out that the Tower was indeed allowing people up! Apparently, they haven’t been very regularly allowing people up the Tower, but we made it happen. The only annoyance that I can think of were all the men peddling Eiffel tower miniatures, key chains, flash lights, etc. It reminded me of the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul... "Come come, my friend, I give you good deal!" 
The ride up was pretty cool, but also a little nerve-wracking. It didn't help that a family in the car with us kept talking about the likelihood of the lift breaking on our way up. First the car goes up the first third of the tower at an angle, then stops and continues up straight to the first viewing floor. You have to get out of the first car and into another elevator to go up to the top viewing deck. The tower stands 324 m (1,063 ft) tall, which isn’t the highest building I’d ever been in, (thanks, CN Tower) but the view was really incredible. You could literally see for miles, and the early morning light with the mist still clinging to the ground created some lovely views. In one of the pictures, you can see the Tower’s shadow falling across the buildings below. Pretty cool! 
On the walls above the indoor viewing windows, there were plaques pointing to various cities all around the world telling the viewers the distance between the Eiffle Tower and, say, Toronto, Canada. Of course it gave us a fun little photo op. As wonderful as the views were from up there, it was so cold and we didn’t feel like losing our fingers to frost bite. We descended back to solid ground and took a moment to find a nice spot in a park to sit and eat our pain au chocolat. 
Breakfast eaten and bellies happily full, we meandered through the streets in the direction of the Musee D’orsay. On the way, we passed Pont Alexandre III, an arch bridge that spans the Seine, connecting the Champs-Élysées quarter and the Invalides and Eiffel Tower quarter. It was built to honour Tsar Alexandre III and it’s considered to be the most ornate, extravagant bridge in Paris. I have to agree; however, I consider everything in Paris to be ornate and extravagant. I have honestly never seen a city so devoted to sculpture and architecture and beautiful things during all our travel in Europe. Nothing in Canada even comes close; the history and the art that has built this city into the wonder that it is today will hopefully be established in a Canadian city someday.
Rob has been a wonderful tour guide for me so far in Paris. He seems to always know where we’re going, and it was interesting for me to be shown around the city by someone who’d been there before. He was able to tell me about some of the palaces and other buildings as we passed by them, which has been really engaging. He was very excited to take me to the Musee D’orsay, which was where he said he grew his great appreciation for impressionist art. More specifically, it’s where he fell in love with the painter, Alfred Sisley. Now, I’m not a particular fan of either Sisley or impressionism, but I do really enjoy talking with Rob about art, impressions on the painter’s motives, techniques and the emotions conveyed. Thankfully, however, the Musee D’orsay isn’t just post-impressionism, there’s also more contemporary art. 
There was an entire section for Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts works that included furniture, ceramics, bronze works, wood sculpture, glass blowing… and of course 2-D painting. I really enjoyed this collection, as I’d never seen Art Nouveau featured so prominently in a gallery before. There are also many beautiful sculptures and statues, classical Dutch, French and Italian paintings, a collection of work by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (the man who did all the original painting advertising for the Moulin Rouge), and even some photography. It was quite a varied, and seamlessly presented. The building itself is really incredible, too, as it's housed in the former railway station, the Gare d'Orsay. The space is just so huge and really sets off the sculpture hall magnificently. Imagine if Union Station in Toronto was turned into an Art Museum... totally cool. 
Outside, we took pictures of the really amazing life-size sculptures in the courtyard of the Museum, which was fun. From here, we took the Metro back to our hotel and I took a nap before dinner. We went to an awesome Thai place called Spice and Wine, which, despite having been very empty and very small, had spectacular Pad Thai, my absolute favourite.
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